The Providence and Problem of Parabels
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Claim - Jesus speaks in parables to further distinguish between the judgement facing those who ‘have closed their eyes’ and those who are ‘blessed’ becasue they have been given eyes to see.
Focus - How parables act as a spiritual examination, that proves God’s sovereign work in salvation and confirms our human responsibility in responding to Jesus truth.
Function - to be equipped to hold the tension between God’s work and our responsibility in hearing and responding to Jesus, and therefore to respond in drawing nearer to Him.
Pray
Jesus has taught the disciples during the sermon on the mount in chapter 5-7 - and the conclusion about the disciples:
Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’
He engaged in debate with the religious leaders in 11-12, and they are far from ‘doing the will of the Father’. His conclusion:
You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
And now in chapter 13 Jesus turns his attention to the crowds:
Matthew 13:1–3 (NIV 2011)
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: ...
This long chapter is then full of parables - earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.
So before we spend a few weeks going through the parables, it’s worth thinking about the purpose of parables:
And helpfully - that’s exactly what the disciples want to know:
The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’
Why not just explain things plainly to them - why not teach directly like he has to the disciples and the pharisees?
Why use earthly stories to illustrate spiritual meaning?
And as we think about Jesus’ answer to their question, we’re going to also discover how we need to understand, and respond to God as well.
So Parables:
1 - Kingdom Hidden - Kingdom Revealed
1 - Kingdom Hidden - Kingdom Revealed
11 He replied, ‘Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.
Parables reveal knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven to some, but they keep the secrets of the kingdom hidden from others.
Put simply, Jesus used parables to reveal secrets to those to whom it was intended, and to hide (or continue to hide) these secrets from everyone else.
A disciple can hear the parable and understand new things about the kingdom of God, becasue God has allowed them to understand. It’s been ‘given’ to them - and so he says later
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
We’ll come back to how we get our heads around what we think of this gift of revelation or hiding - but for now, it will be useful for us to understand some context of the parables, and what is ment by ‘secrets of the kingdom of heaven’.
2 - What Secrets are Revealed by Parables?
2 - What Secrets are Revealed by Parables?
It’s clear The parables are all about the ‘kingdom of heaven’, Jesus says that in v11,
but what does he mean that they teach the ‘secrets’ of the kingdom?
What’s the secret now being revealed in parables?
To understand that, we need to go back into the OT a little and get our heads around what the Israeletes of Jesus day didn’t know about the Kingdom of Heaven, that we, with the NT and the parables, do know.
Or as Our passage says in
So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.’
Something not known about the kingdom of heaven in all history is about to be revealed in these parrables.
Now, the Israelites were expecting a new ‘kingdom to come’;
- but the secret, hidden thing, was how the Christ was to bring all the promises togetger.
The OT is full of promises about a coming king who will bring about His glorious and eternal kingdom:
Fo example:
‘In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Here is a promise of
2a - A Glorious, Sovereign, Powerful, Eternal, King - worthy of all worship!
2a - A Glorious, Sovereign, Powerful, Eternal, King - worthy of all worship!
A King coming in triumph and rule who will be recognised and worshipped by all nations.
And one of the big problems that the people of Jesus’ day struggled with was that this is the type of King they were expecting - and Jesus wasn’t quite coming in this triumphant glory and power!
Even those who wanted to accept Jesus as the new King, wanted to make him this mighty and powerful king promised in Daniel.
We see it in
Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
Now, Alongside this mighty and powerful king to come, They also knew the prophesies of this coming king also being the suffering servant - they just didn’t understand how the 2 descriptions fitted together.
How can a triumphant king also fulfil
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
here is a
2b - Despised, Rejected, Suffering Servant who takes our Punishment and Restores us to God
2b - Despised, Rejected, Suffering Servant who takes our Punishment and Restores us to God
How then do these 2 prophesies get reconciled?
If you’re a 1st century Jew, it’s probably understandable, you don’t know.
A worshiped Triumphant King, and rejected suffering servant don’t seemingly go together in the coming of a new kingdom. It’s a hidden secret.
Well entre Jesus and his parables - and had they ‘had ears to hear’ and eyes to see, they would have heard and seen how Jesus was to fulfil both. He explains it in the parables.
All of them describe the new kingdom as …
2c - Now and Not Yet Kingdom
2c - Now and Not Yet Kingdom
The kingdom has come now - but it is also not fully realised or experienced yet.
This is a 2-stage kingdom.
And the parables describe the now, and contain the promise of a not yet fulfilment.
To take one short example:
‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
The man finds the kingdom of heaven immediately, now, where Jesus is King and Lord, but for a ‘time’ he must sacrifice and continue his earthly life until he can enjoy the fulness of the kingdom. - not yet
He’s found the kingdom now - what a joy - and he knows he’ll have it fully - but not yet.
And in the mean time (now) it’s worth giving up everything else - for this Kingdom that is to fully come.
This is the secret being revealed in the parables.
And this is how Jesus is both the suffering servant and triumphant King.
The kingdom has come in the first coming of Jesus, and he first came as the suffering, gentle servant.
As the suffering servant He then wins victory through his death and resurection on the cross, defeating evil, taking our sin and God’s right judgment upon himself,
And so sets himself up to return again as the triumphant King!
Next time he returns He will come in great victory and triumph where the full glory of his kingdom will be obvious and realised by all. Every knee will bow!
And the time we are in now - is the time to hear and respond - to live in the ‘now and not yet’ - to live as the parables tell us to live, and to understand the kingdom as the parable reveal.
so that at his second coming, we will be his eternally rewarded and blessed children - not condemned as we deserve.
Now we ‘do the will of the Father’ - to humbly turn from our sin, ask for his mercy and strive to live for him now alone - becasue we belong to the kingdom now, and live in joy and hope of our Kings return.
Jesus when directly asked when the Kingdom of God will come in Luke’s gospel says exactly this:
For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
And then in Lukes’ gospel he goes into all the parables of Jesus.
‘Now and not yet.’
The parables tell us how to live in and understand this - they marry together the glorious king and the suffering servant.
A secret not known until Jesus came and explained it to the masses in parabels,
So as we read and think about them over the coming weeks - they will be of immense value to showing us - how as followers of Jesus - how we are to understand and live in Jesus’ Kingdom, right now in light of His future return.
This is then why the parables reveal or hide - depending on who hears them
For the believer who accepts that Jesus has come already as the suffering servant - the parables are Gold!
The disciples can’t get enough of the parables - tell us what they mean, explain more. The parables act as magnets drawing them closer to Jesus.
But,
For the one who wants a different saviour - a mighty King who fights for us without demanding humility and repentance, a King who blesses and improves life right now rather than calls us to join in a sacrificial suffering life until he returns
- well they have missed that they first need a suffering servant who will forgive their sin and rebelion towards God
- they just want reward and blessing without having to first acknowledge their need for salvation from their own sin and attitudes towards God — so they’re not interested. And the parables just frustrate and repel them from Jesus.
Or as Jesus puts it
Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
That’s something to pray this week before we get into the parables - that we can come knowing and respnnding to Jesus the suffering servant who died for our sin, so as we study the parables - we will receive an abundance from Jesus.
That what parable do,
So then as promised - what do we make of this deliberate use of parable to deliberately reveal to some and hide from others these truths?
Why does God hide this from some - how is it our fault if we don’t understand?
If you like - how do we manage this tension between:
3 - God’s Sovereign Will vs Human Choice
3 - God’s Sovereign Will vs Human Choice
Jesus’ quote in v13-15 is from Ish 6:9-10, reflects this tension well:
This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘ “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
Jesus says - he deliberately speaks in parables - SO THAT - those that don’t see - wont see.
It’s them not seeing, but also God not revealing.
This Isaiah passage Jesus quotes from hundreds of years earlier was an judgemnt prophesy given to the Israelites were becasue they had become like the very idols they had turned to instead of God.
The idols have eyes and hears but do not see or hear - they are just statues!
So now, those who reject the living God for mute, deaf and blind idols have become like their objects of worship.
They close their eyes and ears to God And God will finish the job.
It looks like complete disaster for them as judgement is promised - and no healing - restoration to God - is available. - but their is a promise a few verse later
And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.’
Even a remnant of people will be destroyed - God has rejected any way back to Him - brought about by their chosen will to reject God, but now God’s soverignty refuses restoration even for future decendants,
But, but just like a cut tree leaves a stump - there is a holy seed - a stump that will be left, - God is not finished entirely with humanity - His people. But it’s all in his sovereign control as to how and when.
Sinners will never choose God, but God can open sinners eyes again.
And so - entre Jesus - the holy seed - the stump of hope and rescue -
In other words we see the same dynamics at work. God is sovereign in who can and can’t respond to His truth and salvation -
But people are absolutely accountable for their choice in closing their eyes and ears to Him.
Jesus made this point a chapter ago:
‘All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
The reality is that we, are dead in our sin before God - and dead people cannot raise themselevse to new life.
God in His sovereignty and love MUST be the one to act upon us in order that we might hear his word, the gospel, the parables - to see who Jesus is.
And Praise God - that is what he does:
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Along side this - we must also hold the tension that when we hear the teaching of the bible we must respond.
To not do so is to ‘close our eye’ - we choose and are accountable for our rejection and sin against God.
Of course - we think - well those 2 things can’t both be true. But just becasue we can’t understand something doesn’t make it untrue.
We need to hold in tension - that God alone receives all the credit and glory for when we or others confess sins and turn to him.
But we must also accept the wickedness and sinfulness of our dead sinful selves when we refuse him.
God has in his wisdom not revealed the secrets of the kingdom from many,
and at the same time,
many have heard but refused to see and hear.
But theses truths really do help us if we can hold them together.
If we can avoid emotional reactions to things we can’t comprehend - we can accept God’s Word is wiser and beyond us.
And so if we can apply both sides of this to life at the same time (even thought we don’t undertsnad the mechanics behind it) we will find it richly rewarding and helpful.
Think of the comfort and hope and Joy to remember that God is absolutely in control of openeing eyes:
- It means dead sinners can find forgiveness and life in Jesus,
It means justice will come, and evil, satan and all suffering will end!
It means we can trust His design and will for our life however hard or difficult it might be!
Our life is not left to the whim and will of people around us or even ourselevs!
We do not want a world or a salvation that relies on people - or all would be lost.
The parables themselevs would have nothing useful for us - and we’d face an eternity under God’s punishment.
Equally
Recognising our human responsibility and freedom means certain things:
- It makes it easy to know what to do when we hear Jesus in His word, and learn from his parables - It’s easy becasue we simply need to trust and obey and follow.
- We don’t need to undertsand how the theolgy of everything works - the call is clear! Open your eyes, open your ears, soften your heart - hear and respond. Draw closer to Jesus.
So, over the coming weeks
If you close your spiritual eyes and hears and heart - then the parables might harden you further - becasue you will leave perhaps angry, confused, indifferent.
But if we respond with open eyes - then we will as the disciples do - drawer near to Jesus and grow in awe and love of our suffering servant and triumphant King.
Pray
